Reflection

Beaver Galleries 1 - 17 JUNE 2023

Canberra artist Dianne Fogwell is a highly accomplished printmaker and painter known for her luminous works inspired by the natural world.  This exhibition, focusing on the importance of water, follows on from Dianne’s powerful bushfire-themed works over recent years.  Inspired by “climatic shifts from fire to flood and ponderings about the significance of water to all life while wandering around the rivers, wetlands and lakes of the Canberra region,” these works capture waters’ regenerative powers of transformation, hope and renewal.   Her works on paper, demonstrate her extraordinary relief printmaking skills as she creates dreamscape-like compositions through an intuitive building of layers.  Each element of her composition is carefully arranged using a variety of intricately carved individual linocuts of trees and birdlife.  These highly detailed images, often combined with soft metallic inks, create glittering luscious surfaces.  Dianne’s delicately painted and richly detailed oil paintings, portray the unique characteristics of Canberra’s vibrant bird life.  This superb exhibition seeks to draw attention to the intrinsic relationships that nurture our ecosystems whilst simultaneously being mindful of the danger that water can sometimes pose.

In a career spanning thirty years, Canberra artist Dianne Fogwell has had many solo exhibitions locally and interstate, and participated in group exhibitions both nationally and internationally, including the 1st Seoul International Artist Book Fair in Korea.  She has made a major contribution to the arts community in Canberra through her art practice, teaching, curating and establishing press and print studios.  Dianne has been the recipient of numerous awards.  In 2021, she was the winner of the Geelong Acquisitive Print Award, the City News ‘Artist of the Year’ award at the ACT Art Awards as well as the Canberra Critics Circle Visual Arts Award for her show “Transient” at Beaver Galleries.  She also received an Award of Excellence at the inaugural WAMA Art Prize.  Other significant awards include the 2020 Libris Awards: Australian Artists’ Book Prize (winner), 2019 Ulsan International Woodcut Print Biennale in South Korea (special prize winner), and winner of both the 2017 Geelong Acquisitive Print Award and the Banyule Award for Works on Paper.  Her work is represented in many public collections including the National Gallery of Australia, National Library of Australia, State Library of NSW, Artbank, Australian War Memorial, Canberra Museum and Gallery, Art Institute of Chicago (USA) and the National Museum for Women in the Arts (Washington, USA).